News Round-up: December 19, 2016

Here are some highlights from the past week’s news and upcoming events on family tax credit issues.

  • Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) announced a plan to lower the income tax rate for individuals earning less than $21,000 per year. While many lawmakers praised Gov. Hutchinson’s commitment to helping low-income families make ends meet, some Democratic lawmakers said such households would be better served by a state-level Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) (Arkansas Online, Press Argus Courier).
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R) announced that tackling tax reform will be a top priority for Congress in 2017. Ryan has long been a proponent of expanding the federal EITC for workers not raising children and has signaled that such a measure could be included in a tax reform deal (The Atlantic).

  • With Congress likely to kick off the New Year with a debate on cutting taxes, the Sacramento Bee Editorial Board wrote that lawmakers in California should follow suit and help those taxpayers most in need by expanding the state’s EITC (Sacramento Bee).
  • The Louisiana Budget Project is calling for legislation to create a more equitable tax code after a report found that the state had the fourth-worst income gap in the nation. The organization is pushing to expand the state’s EITC to reduce inequality (Greater Baton Rouge Business Report).